Caer Caveral
Caer Caveral (who used to be Hile Troy) is one of two new Forestals created at different times by that grumpiest of botany-loving entities, Caerroil Wildwood. He appears briefly at the end of the First Chronicles, far more significantly in the Second Chronicles and even has a bit part as a tree-stump in the Third Chronicles. Appearance and Personality Caer Caveral is still faintly recognizable as Hile Troy, in that he adopts the form of a tall blind black guy, albeit looking older, wiser and a bit more mystical than his previous incarnation - think more Ray Charles than Stevie Wonder now. Having eschewed his previous love of armour and all things militaristic, Caer Caveral now favours loose-fitting robes of flowing sendaline in natural hues. As with all Forestals, he carries a staff fashioned from the living bough of a tree. Despite the bad-tempered nature of he who created him, Caer Caveral isn't renowned for grumpiness, though it's still best never to cross any of these arboreal elemental types. Although spending his days apparently pleasantly, wandering around Andelain caring for its many trees, shrubs, flowers and other plants while humming Joan Baez songs, Caer Caveral has a pronounced melancholy streak, caused by his believing himself (wrongly, as it turns out) to be the Land's last ever Forestal. Role in the Second Chronicles By the time we meet him in the Second Chronicles, the newly created tree-hugger has clearly passed his grade one herbiphilic examination and has now been fully transmogrified into a Forestal - and he's lucky enough to have been put in charge of Andelain. He's also changed his name by deed poll to something only fractionally less silly than Hile Troy, namely Caer Caveral. Now as a nature elemental of sorts, Caer Caveral gets up to the usual Forestal tricks - he murmurs mystically, hums and trills a lot and sings magic-laden versions of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez songs, as you'd expect. However, his most significant act occurs towards the climax of The Wounded Land, the final book of the trilogy. At this point, he takes the momentous (and narratively necessary) decision to break the Law of Life. This he does in returning Hollian to the living by means of one of his eldritch ditties, but is only able to do this at the cost of his own life, since he has to persuade Sunder to stab him to death with Loric's krill in order to achieve this. The last we see of Hile - or Caer Caveral as he now is - is him having been magically transformed by such mighty yet forbidden theurgy into a blackened tree-stump with the eldritch dagger firmly embedded within it. Geez, what is it with this guy? He's been turned into a tree-stump again? Didn't the exact same thing happen when he was originally made into a Forestal? Now once might be unlucky, but twice? Something's definitely going on around here... Role in the Last Chronicles The reader briefly meets Troy in his beloved tree-stump form in Andelain with the lifeless krill protruding from his/its trunk, the two having fossilized and fused into one great stiffy. The resurrected Covenant craves the eldritch blade, so Rime Coldspray biffs him asunder with two delicate blows. Not a very dignified end, all things considered. Perhaps the Worm used his remains as toothpicks after devouring a few continents. Category:Characters Category:Forestals Category:The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Category:The Third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant